


Runaways

by Meeralith



Series: Meera's GW2 Ficlets [1]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Platonic Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 05:04:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14888159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meeralith/pseuds/Meeralith
Summary: Wyld-Hunt-Deserter Yulienni has settled with the Skritt, and runs a small mission to protect them from a nearby Nightmare camp. Within, she encounters an asuran Progeny, imprisoned and terrified. She decides to rescue him.





	Runaways

**Author's Note:**

> Old-ish snippet about two of my characters, which I intend to continue soon. Consider this a prequel of sorts?

This was her choice.  
The Court frightened her, their corruption, their potential influence on her, that was the reason she left in the first place, but still, she was here, fighting the Nightmare again.

But today it was different.  
Yulienni fought voluntarily, not driven by her long-abandoned Wyld Hunt or Yofiel - she fought because she wanted to fight.  
It had been a few weeks since she had ran into a group of skritt struggling with harpies, helping them out had opened her a path into this little community. The skritt were thankful for her aid and warmly welcomed the Sylvari into their settlement, fortifying it and hunting for food had given Yulienni a bigger sense of purpose than her Dream had.  
She remembered a cold feeling rising in her chest when her skritt-friends mentioned “bad plant-people” attacking the settlement from the north, and without hesitation, she picked up her weapons once again.

Yulienni didn’t fight for any greater good this time, she fought for her friends.

The Nightmare Court’s camp was fairly small, she expected no more than thirty habitants. An outpost, its loss likely wouldn’t even alert the leadership of the Court. Her Wyld Hunt wouldn’t have brought her here, the objective was just too small and insignificant to send a Valiant to deal with it.

She placed her hand on the bag she was carrying. The skritt weren’t as dumb as most people expected them to be, they knew that Yulienni wouldn’t be able to take on this camp on her own, so theyhad given her bombs.  
Her intention wasn’t open combat, it was sabotage.

It had gone exceptionally well. Her ability to make herself invisible had allowed her to walk almost freely among the Courtiers patrolling the camp, while setting the bombs. After only twenty minutes, she was already on her way out. Her skritt partner, Richikki, was waiting just out of sight to set off the bombs.

She passed a cell, believing it to be empty, thus she froze when she heard tiny, dry sobs from behing the vines. Not yet dropping her stealth, she hurried back to the cell and peeked in.

Yulienni had to stop herself from producing a pained whine.  
Behind the leaves and thorns, a small creature cowered, so tiny Yule hadn’t seen them at first.  
It was an asuran child, a progeny, frozen in terror, eyes wide open, trembling with fear. The progeny was male, as far as Yulienni could tell, and at first glance, he didn’t seem to be hurt.

After a quick look over her shoulder, to ensure that she was out of sight, Yulienni dropped her invisibility, drew her sword and swung at the thorny door, ripping it open.  
The progeny squeaked audibly and shambled to the back of the cell without lifting his eyes from Yulienni. Tears started rolling down his cheeks - he probably mistook her for a Courtier coming to finish him off.

Yulienni stopped for a second and quickly sheathed her sword.  
“It’s okay. I’m not one of them.” she whispered and the asura’s eyes widened even more. His lips trembled, but he didn’t speak.  
“My name is Yule.” she calmly introduced herself, carefully coming closer. “I promise, I won’t hurt you. Can you tell me your name?”

His eyes darted to her sheathed sword, then back to her face.  
“Riaff. My name is Riaff.” he peeped, his childlike voice sounded hoarse, probably from crying so much.  
“Okay. Riaff, you have to stay calm, allright? I can get you out of here, but you’ll have to trust me. Can you do that?” Yule continued and bridged the distance between her and Riaff.  
He glanced over her shoulder, probably as worried about the Courtiers as she was, then he quickly nodded.

Yulienni crouched down, carefully placed her hands on Riaff’s waist and lifted him up. He weighed almost nothing, even someone as weedy as Yule could carry him with no effort.  
“Hold on to me, and make no sound.” she instructed and Riaff obediently dug his claws into her shoulder, he was still trembling on his entire body.  
The Sylvari didn’t lose anytime and stealthed again, started running towards the exit of the camp, skipping the last bit of the way with a teleport.

Her flash-step revealed her next to Richikki, who looked up to her in confusion.  
“Do it.” Yulienni ordered and seconds later, a chain of explosions ruptured the camp.

Riaff whined and clung even harder to his savior, as she started running again, followed by her skritt-friend.

“Are you hurt?” was the first thing Yulienni asked after putting Riaff down gently and catching her breath. They had reached the skritt settlement safely and were immediatly surrounded by its citizens. The skritt were obviously itching to bombard Yulienni with questions, but they held themselves back for now.

Riaff hesitantly unbuttoned his shirt and let it slide off his arms, then turned around. Long, red grazes and cuts tore through his dark skin, the Courtiers had probably whipped him. A non-lethal way of inflicting pain, Yulienni felt her disgust for the Court grow a bit more.

She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a young looking, male skritt who enthuisiastically waved at her.  
“Follow!” he demanded and hurried ahed. Yulienni quickly picked up her new friend, careful not to touch his wounds, and rushed after the skritt.  
He led them to a small area, secluded with rustly metal plates, glued together to form a wall.  
Yulienni couldn’t really tell the function of this place, it was packed with boxes and stolen machinery, just like every corner of the settlement was.

The skritt gestured at something that looked like a wooden bench with a missing backpiece, then began to rummage one of the boxes.  
Yulienni nodded and placed Riaff on the piece of wood, patting his shoulder reassuringly.  
“He probably knows what he’s doing.”

The skritt hopped onto the bench as well, with a strong smelling paste, gathered in something that looked like an old chestplate.  
“Hold still.” he commanded Riaff. “It helps with the pain.”  
Not leaving Riaff any time to protest, he began applying the paste to his wounds.  
Riaff flinched a little and stuttered an apology, then helplessly looked up to Yulienni.  
“Why… why are you working with skritt?” he asked shyly, probably worried about offending someone.  
“Oh, that… that’s a long story.” she replied with a soft smile and sat down on the floor. “But I could ask you the same. I haven’t seen any asura around here, how come you ended up in that cell?”

Riaff quickly averted his gaze and began chewing on his lower lip.  
“D-Do you promise not to take me back to Rata Sum if I tell you?” he whispered and Yulienni raised her brows.  
“You ran away?” she assumed. “Why?”  
“It’s dumb, really.” the progeny muttered with a joyless chuckle. “I just… sort of felt like my family would be better off without me. I didn’t… I wasn’t happy. That’s all I can say, really.” He seeked eye contact again. “Please don’t take me back there, I-…”

Yulienni smiled and shook her head.  
“No, don’t you worry. I understand. Better than you’d think, actually.” she assured him. “After all, I’m a runaway too. You don’t have to go back if you don’t want to.”

For the first time, Yulienni saw Riaff’s features lighten up - an effect she would have on him a lot in the future.


End file.
